From: Lucio Chiappetti (lucio@mi.iasf.cnr.it)
Date: Wed Dec 18 2002 - 10:22:27 EST
It's likely that finally during the Christmas holiday season I'll upgrade
my old-but-working Alpha 255 from DU3.2 (which I kept so far for
compatibility with older s/w I use and lack of time) to 4.0G (again this
is not the newest, but will allow me to preserve compatibility with device
naming and other things required by my s/w ... this probably will be the
last and only upgrade I'll do ... we never had many Alphas, we were mainly
a Sun and now a Linux site).
I have 3 Alphas (two are 255 4/232, and one 200 4/100). A colleague has
independently a 255/300.
1) My first question concerns the firmware revision.
My two 255 have "Firmware revision 6.0 PALcode 1.46". The 200 has
"Firmware revision 5.0 PALcode 1.35". Will I have problems installing
operating system 4.0G (rev. 1530) on it ?
This is the OS which was recently installed on the 255/300 (we obtained
the CDs from our institution old campus arrangement). However the 255/300
was downgraded from 5.0 to 4.0G and had ALREADY "Firmware revision 7.0
PALcode 1.46".
Do I need a firmware upgrade ? Which version and what are the part number
of the CDs ? (I'll have to dig them out from the person formerly in charge
of the campus arrangement).
Any hint (either in my old 3.2 docs or on the web) about the way to
proceed with the firwmare upgrade ?
2) Pointers to documentation
With all the DEC-Compaq-HP story, I've lost track of where to find
applicable documentation (specifically for installation) for 4.0G.
Can anubody provide up-to-date reliable pointers ?
3) monitor-less installation and running ?
One of the reason I'll do the upgrade at this time is that the colleague
which is using the other 255 is dismissing it to move to Linux.
Therefore I'll intend to use his old Alpha ("B") as guinea pig for the
upgrade to 4.0G while I keep mine ("A") at 3.2. Later, after I've upgraded
"A", I could keep "B" either in cold redundancy as a spare (saving on
maintenance contracts), or in wark redundancy as an extra CPU.
However my colleague will retain his monitor to attach it to his Linux
machine.
One possibility is that I do the installation on "B" with the monitor, and
later detach the monitor and return it to my colleague. Any hint about
what I should do to run it with 4.0G without monitor ? (Note that one
thing I'm familiar with is VNC ... I could use it to access a virtual
display on "B" from "A" ... but obviously not during boot.
Another possibility is that I do the installation of "B" attaching to it
the monitor I have on "A". In this case I'd like to keep "A" running (to
receive mail, run crontabs etc.). Is there any problem to disconnect a
monitor from a running machine (with 3.2 if it matters) and reconnecting
it later ?
Thanks for all the hints
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Lucio Chiappetti - IASF/CNR - via Bassini 15 - I-20133 Milano (Italy)
For more info : http://www.mi.iasf.cnr.it/~lucio/personal.html
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